I doubt biofuels could ever contribute more than a few percent of the needs of current volumes of air traffic. Suppose a flight from Melbourne to Sydney requires x hectares of oilseeds as a source of fuel. Then add another x hectares for the return flight. We'll need 3x hectares for a flight from Melbourne to Perth. That's just for one day's fuel needs but the crops take a whole year to grow and harvest. Then jet fuel has to compete with physically similar farm diesel to meet its own output requirement. Before long all the spare arable land will be taken up growing biofuel and food prices will escalate. Forget the crops and adjust the settings on the refinery to make less diesel and more jet fuel.

As crude oil depletes I think the increased cost of flying will kill demand. Whether that justifies the capital cost of high speed rail is unclear. People may travel less, take longer trips or use video conferencing instead of business travel. We could make enough jet fuel from coal but carbon taxes will make that hellishly expensive. The aviation industry must shrink.

I'm confused.

On one side there are the strident folk who tell me that the world is rapidly running out of food, and we shall all starve unless we stop having children. (I did get that right, didn't I?)

And on the other we have these other folk who think it is a really neat idea to use arable land to make air travel cheaper.

Is it just me, or is there not some serious disconnect here?

Pericles, it is probably just you :)

Fact is, we have starving children now, yet we use land to grow
biofuels. Its a big hit in Europe, the US and elsewhere.

Human self interest will prevail. Or will you cancel that next
holiday trip and send the money to feed another couple of starving
babies? Its a valid question.

I really can't imagine why anyone would want to use a heap of diesel fuel to grow a crop of oil seed. Then use a heap of electricity, probably generated by coal, to produce a "bio fuel" that can supply less energy per liter than it cost to produce that liter.

If ever there was a process that proved that greenie stuff is actually a form of madness, this must be it. God help us, at least until the crash. After that we had better start helping ourselves again.

There are three pretty obvious questions not answered in this article:

1. What is the land area required to grow the projected volumes of biofuels?

2. What is the Energy Return on Investment for creating biofuels from Camelina? That is when all of the additional energy inputs are considered, do we actually see a net gain in energy?

3. What impact do changes in fossil fuel prices have on the price of the largely fossil fuel derived biofuels?

This is really just a PR article.

Aviation fuels need not take up any arable land.
The simpson desert would grow an enormous amount of blue-green alge all year round.
Think beyond the usual,farming practices and it may just make $ & cents.
Even if bio fuel cost more than the present cost of oil, it would be better to have a stable price.